Brad Goodale (center), pastor of Philippi Baptist Church, Union, was elected president of the 2012 South Carolina Baptist Pastor’s Conference Nov. 14. Other officers for 2012 include vice president Dwight Easler (left), pastor of Corinth Baptist Church, Gaffney; and secretary-treasurer Quinn Hooks, pastor of Evergreen Baptist Church, Effingham. All were elected by acclamation.Minutes after his election as president of the South Carolina Baptist Pastor’s Conference, Brad Goodale, pastor of Philippi Baptist Church in Union, drew plenty of “amens” and some shouts from his afternoon audience, even though he made it clear, “I am not here to please you, I am here to please my Lord.”
Goodale, who had served the previous year as the conference’s vice president, preached a message with a condition to it as he sought to uplift the spirit of fellow pastors. “Be encouraged,” he declared to them, “if you are preaching the word.”
The Union pastor took a dim view of pastors who “add to or take away” from the Bible and of those who “substitute the books of men for the Bible” as primary sources of their preaching.
Part of the problem, he said, stems from the attempts by pastors to draw upon what is more secular than sacred to “relate” to their congregations. “I’m not trying to relate to my congregation,” he said. “I’m trying to get my congregation to relate to Christ.”
Goodale said that not all pastors preach what he termed a “biblical gospel.” “Everything you tell your people to do – can you back it up from Scripture? If not, you’d better not say it.”
He urged the pastors to exhibit self-control as they shepherd their people, rely on the Bible to “make it through times of suffering” and to “do the work of an evangelist and finish your ministry.”
If frequent shouts and hearty amens punctuated the preaching of Goodale, the afternoon audience grew silent and solemn as the newly named vice president, Dwight Easler, pastor of Corinth Baptist Church in Gaffney, told of the heartache of losing a child in a tragic accident, but finding grace in its aftermath.
In March, his 6-year-old son Benji died when the train that he and 27 other people – including Easler, his wife and two other sons – were riding overturned and plunged into a creek bed.
The Gaffney minister said that his message was “my way of returning to you a ministry that you gave to me and my family, to give back some of the encouragement that you gave to us.”
Easler said storms will take their toll on all believers at some time in their lives. “A storm is coming,” he said. “It’s just a matter of when.”
The Gaffney minister said that “faith is no buffer” from the storms of life, that “you can trust God and still get hurt.”
Clinging to Romans 8:28 – that God is at work in all things for the good of those of who love him – Easler said, “The good that is accomplished is not necessarily immediate nor easily seen.”
“Whatever you are going through,” he told the pastors, “God can use it for your good and he can be glorified through it. In the end, God is God and I’m not. He can use anything he wants to glorify himself.”
The theme of the 2011 Pastor’s Conference was taken from Matthew 14:27 when a storm of water and wind on the Sea of Galilee threatened the safety of the disciples until Jesus came to them, walking on the water. He told them, “Have courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”